


Skin Deep

by red_river



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Model AU, One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 08:32:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8155781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_river/pseuds/red_river
Summary: “How the hell are you making me do that?” Mikoto growls.  “Look so…”“Human?”
Mikoto's a model who's completely over his job, until his agency starts working with a new photographer: Munakata Reishi.  AU, oneshot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story was previously posted on Tumblr, but I thought I'd post it on AO3, too, in honor of MikoRei Week. Shamelessly inspired by Azii's sketch of the same concept on Tumblr, though I've flipped the script and made Mikoto the model.

**Skin Deep**

 

Mikoto’s been a model long enough that nothing surprises him anymore, when he’s in front of the camera.  The way his body moves, on instinct; the bored, scorching expression that ignites in his eyes when he twists for somebody else, a puppet off its strings—that’s an old feeling, doesn’t even come with the adrenaline rush anymore that used to detonate with every flash, the insecurities about what this is, what he’s doing here, whether he really has it in him.  He’s over all that.

He’s over it, until his agency starts working with a new photographer, Munakata Reishi.

Cologne spreads, clothes spreads, car spreads; that’s always been his wheelhouse, somewhere between grunge and romance novel fodder, punk with flair, a little too carefully dressed to be street.  It’s not what he got into modeling to do, maybe—but he mostly got into this because he owes Kusanagi more than he can ever repay and the agency, Homra, was really hurting for faces the first few years.  _Even faces like yours_ , Kusanagi said at the time, probably joking, Mikoto can’t always tell.  He’s not good with people, even people who’ve been with him through everything, who know all his seams inside out.  He spent the first few years expecting to be replaced every time a new pretty face hit the lobby, but somehow he’s still here. 

It’s whatever.  It’s a job.  He’s stopped looking at the photos, no longer impressed by this stranger on the proofs who barely even looks like him, draped over the shoulder of a hot blonde or a car like it’s where he belongs.  Mikoto doesn’t feel like he belongs anywhere, even in his own skin.

His disinterest in his work is legendary.  So he’s more than a little surprised, after the first shoot by Munakata, when Kusanagi comes into the lounge and throws the proofs down on the coffee table, his usual cigarette smoldering between his lips.

“You’re going to want to see these.”

Mikoto looks up through his messy bangs, kicks the folder open with the toe of one sneaker.  Has to sit up fully, then, to stare at the glossy eight-by-eights strewn over the table, riveted by his own image.

It’s him, but it’s not him.  Or more like, it’s _him_ , Mikoto, the man behind the model.  The person no one’s managed to take a picture of in six years, since he first stood in front of the camera.

Most photographers shoot him from the waist up to take advantage of his chiseled shoulders, his bared abs.  There are a few like that, but mostly Munakata— _whoever that is_ —has shot him in close, the camera’s eye focused on his fingers raking through his damp bangs, the clash of pale skin and red hair, gold eyes under shuttered lashes.  He stares longest at the picture of himself in a hooded jacket, glancing back over his turned shoulder, his eyes burning above the black ruff.  Munakata caught him with his hands clenched in the collar, something hunted and vulnerable in his face.  Mikoto thought he never looked like that outside of his mirror.  It makes him feel small, like his soul has been inked into the paper. 

“Who took these?” He tries to recall the figure behind the camera.  Tall, he remembers that—dark hair, black coffee, glasses with thin wire rims.  The stab of sharp blue eyes piercing him in the second before the flash went off.  He hadn’t struck Mikoto as anything special.  Apparently, Munakata didn’t feel the same way.

Kusanagi shrugs.  “Don’t know him personally.  But I’m sending him a bottle of Cask 7, because this roll netted two more shoots and an offer to costar in Ameno Miyabi’s next music video.”

It’s huge exposure for him, but pop music isn’t really Mikoto’s scene.  Anyway, it’s a fluke, he decides, kicking a can out of his way in the agency parking lot, flopping down on the worn black couch in his studio apartment and throwing an arm over his tired eyes.

No one’s ever seen that in him—the brittleness, the places where he’s frayed.  Not his oldest friends; not Kusanagi’s kid, who’s wise beyond her thirteen years.  Certainly not this navy-blue ghost in his head, long deft fingers wrapped around a lens.

But the thing is, it happens again.  And again.  Munakata’s got to be the only photographer Kusanagi’s using anymore, and every time they wrap a shoot Mikoto walks away feeling a little lighter, like a part of his soul’s been carved out and left on the film.  It’s weird how much he likes that.  It’s weird that he gets a thrill from looking at his own pictures, trying to see Munakata’s reflection in his art.  Mikoto’s never even met this guy, not really, but after three weeks it already feels like he’s modeling just for Munakata, trying to lure him into looking a little longer.

Munakata’s a ghost until all of a sudden he’s far too real, right up in Mikoto’s space.  They’re shooting Dior and Mikoto’s fighting the urge to fidget on the divan, uncomfortable in the fitted button-down and vest, the pants that are skin-tight on the inseam.  He’s distracted by a disembodied voice from somewhere behind the blinding lights.

“Fix his shirt please, Awashima.”

It couldn’t be more polite, but it’s got that edge too, like this is someone who’s used to being obeyed.  The photographer’s assistant hurries in to undo a couple buttons, down to his pecs, and Mikoto can hear the impatience in Munakata’s voice— _so much deeper than he expected, like a vibration in his bones_ —as he says, “No, the other way.  Never mind—I’ll get it.”

Mikoto spends his life surrounded by ridiculously good-looking people.  It shouldn’t blow him away this bad, locking stares with his photographer as the man leans over him, his gaze raking down Mikoto’s sprawled form.  Munakata’s pretty hot, almost model gorgeous himself, except for the eyes, maybe, too sharp to be a sales feature.  Mikoto feels them like chisels hammering at his concrete heart.

Munakata re-buttons his shirt until only the top one’s loose and then skews the neck, his pale thumb tracing the line of Mikoto’s collarbone.  The touch ignites his skin like flash paper.

Mikoto’s modeled half naked straddling a Ferrari, but that’s nothing compared to how exposed he feels right now.  He wants to get the hell out of here.  He wants Munakata to lean down a little farther and sink his teeth into his clavicle, taste the heartbeat pounding under his skin.  He’s never been so wound up by someone putting his clothes back _on_.

It shows on his face, in the next series of shots.  Desire and panic, wild attraction in wide gold eyes.  Totsuka jokes that even the few times they slept together, a million years ago when they were young enough to think they were in love, Mikoto never looked at him like that.

Mikoto’s sense of humor sucks.  Maybe that’s why he barges into Munakata’s office with the proofs clenched in one hand.  Because this has to stop.  Because if Munakata keeps taking pictures like that, he’s going to ruin Mikoto—not his career, not his portfolio, _Mikoto_ himself.  He’s going to lose his mind, knowing the person who’s understood him best in his entire life is on the other end of a camera, just out of reach.

“How the hell are you doing this?” he growls, throwing the folder down.  The photos slide out and litter Munakata’s stiflingly neat desk, his mirror image asking the same question over and over.  “How are you making me do that?  Look so…so…”

“Human?” Munakata suggests, eyes flicking up to Mikoto over the rims of his glasses.

He’s not intimidated by the intrusion, or by the dangerous tone in Mikoto’s voice—it’s obvious in the languid way Munakata gets out of his chair and comes to stand beside him, pale fingers trailing almost fondly over the photo of Mikoto on the couch, the crease of his bared collarbone.  Mikoto feels that touch all over again.

“Photography is a passive art.  I’m incapable of _making_ you do anything.  I can only reveal what’s already there.  Whatever you’re seeing in these photos, it’s in you, Suoh.”

This close, point-blank range, Mikoto thinks those blue eyes might blind him.  He wants to know how Munakata can see his cracks when no one else can.  He’s out of breath just sharing space with this man, watching a tiny smile settle at the corner of his lips.

“Though, it’s possible what I’ve illuminated is just a façade you adopt for your work.  A photograph can’t tell me if it’s truly part of you.”

Mikoto doesn’t even realize he’s leaning in, resting his hip against the desk so he can slide in between Munakata and the pictures.  There’s barely space for him to speak without the words turning into a kiss.  “You wanna find out?” he asks, and hopes he looks stronger than he feels right now, every atom in him begging Munakata to say yes.

Munakata doesn’t have to.  It’s all in his eyes.

Their first kiss is craning over barstools, the burn of good whiskey on Munakata’s— _Reishi’s_ —tongue.  The second is in the car in Mikoto’s parking lot, the stick shift digging into his knee, lungs shuddering on the scent of new leather and air freshener every time they break to breathe.  Reishi’s hand on his thigh rips him open, those blue eyes taking him apart just like the camera.

They barely know each other, and Mikoto doesn’t usually do this.  But he can’t stop himself.  He has to find out how deep that knowledge really goes.  “Deeper,” he whispers into dark hair— _against the wall, on his back, his knees pressed down into the sheets and his legs caging Reishi’s hips_ —

At the end of the night, he’s certain this is so much more than skin deep.

He’s never fallen so fast, but he doesn’t care—not if he gets to wake up every morning just like this, skin to skin, a preoccupied smile on Reishi’s face as if he’s framing another photo right now, one only he gets to see.  Mikoto hopes he’s worth the shot.

Neither of them notices the prominent hickey on his neck in time to cover it before the shoot.  Next month, that shot’s in all the magazines next to a bottle of Lucky Number 6.  It’s the first time he’s ever seen Reishi flustered.

Mikoto wouldn’t mind having a picture of that.


End file.
